Writing in Books

So one day not long ago, one of my friends picked up one of my books and gasped in shock as she flipped through it. She had seen my writing this book. This started a discussion.

My friend is an amazing poet. She reads voraciously (as voraciously as a mother of two lil' ones can). Although she is now a computer teacher, she is also a certified English teacher. She loves books.

I don't really read voraciously, and I'm a horrible poet, but I do love books.

The interesting thing is that our perspectives on the issue of writing in books were polar opposite:

She, loving books, sees writing in books as destroying something valuable, not valuable in a monetary sense, but valuable in an this-is-important-to-my-life sense.

I, loving books, see writing in books as engaging in a conversation with the author. The amount of writing in a book can often indicate how engaged I was with its content.

For her, it's destruction. For me, it just enriches the experience.